Opinion: PQ cuts put research infrastructure at risk

Ross Stevenson, Special to The Gazette01.14.2013

Ross Stevenson is a professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal and director of Geotop, the Centre de recherche en géochimie et géodynamique, which is funded by Quebec’s Fonds de recherche-Nature et technologies. He lives in Montreal.

The cuts to Quebec universities and to the Fonds de recherche, and especially the 30-per-cent cut to the budget of the Fonds de recherche-Nature et technologies, have cast a cloud over Quebec-based research and prospects for our homegrown talent," Ross Stevenson writes.Fotolia
/ Fotolia

MONTREAL — Knowledge is a precious and increasingly strategic commodity in the 21st century — but it is also a precarious commodity. This is true whether we are talking about industry, culture or science. The accumulation of knowledge that leads to an important advance or economic reward is the result of years of hard work by highly trained researchers.

The crucial element in this formula is the presence of highly trained research personnel. Loss of these personnel can add years of research delays, until replacements can be found and trained.

In its first hundred days, the Marois government has imperilled Quebec’s research infrastructure — which has taken decades to grow and nurture — by announcing that it is cutting five per cent from the operating grants of Quebec’s universities and slashing the budgets of Quebec’s three organizations that provide research grants: the cuts to the Fonds de recherche-Santé and the Fonds de recherche-Société et culture were 13 per cent, and to the Fonds de recherche-Nature et technologies) were 30 per cent. This is akin to cutting Quebec-based knowledge and research off at the knees, because grants from these agencies help pay the salaries of highly skilled research assistants, laboratory technicians and graduate students.

As a university professor who teaches, performs research and directs a Quebec-funded research centre, I have first-hand knowledge of the damage these cuts can produce. Knowledge, whether scientific, industrial or cultural, is acquired through research that, at least in my domain, requires teams of graduate students and highly trained researchers.

Over the past 40 years, successive Quebec governments have recognized the value to Quebec’s society and economy of augmenting the funds available to researchers and graduate students through provincial funding agencies, which also support strategic research groups. There are about 30 such groups across the province, and they have attained international recognition because of the quality of their research — on subjects such as the cause and effect of blue-algae blooms in lakes and rivers, the increasing acidity of the St. Lawrence River, and the effects of climate change on boreal forests and ocean circulation — and have attracted talented researchers from around the world.

The cuts to Quebec universities and to the Fonds de recherche, and especially the 30-per-cent cut to the budget of the Fonds de recherche-Nature et technologies, have cast a cloud over Quebec-based research and prospects for our homegrown talent. Universities miss out on hiring talented new researchers because cuts to operating budgets lead to hiring freezes. And even if there is no hiring freeze, young researchers need research support; with that being cut, these researchers will go elsewhere. Cuts to research support mean research technicians, post-doctoral researchers and graduate students are either laid off or never taken on. These talented young individuals will have to leave Quebec to seek their livelihood.

As precious as knowledge is, it is easily lost in the time it takes to sign a budget into law. In the hundred days of the present provincial government, we have been repeatedly told that everyone has to make a contribution to balancing the province’s budget. It would seem that Quebec’s universities, and particularly its scientific researchers, are contributing more than others. The coming summit on education funding could very well be the Waterloo for Quebec-based knowledge and research.

Ross Stevenson is a professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal and director of Geotop, the Centre de recherche en géochimie et géodynamique, which is funded by Quebec’s Fonds de recherche - Nature et technologies. He lives in Montreal.

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